Advantages of a Staffing Agency for Small Businesses

One of the biggest challenges for small businesses is how to compete with large corporations that have more resources. As you grow, you’ll need to add members to your team, but how do you find the time to sort through all those resumes, conduct interviews, and train your new employees?

If you have a dedicated human resources department, they can handle a lot of these tasks, but even they can get overwhelmed, especially as they take over other employee-related tasks (such as making sure you’re abiding by all the relevant labor laws in your area). No matter what stage your business is in, it can benefit from the help of a staffing agency.

Save Time and Money

Staffing agencies do the vast majority of the hiring process for you. They sort through all the resumes and conduct their own interviews of their candidates, so when you need a new staff member, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, the agency has a ready pool of candidates that would best suit your particular needs. You can then choose to interview a few select candidates for your open position, or just have the staffing agency send someone to start working. The latter option is especially great for temporary or temp-to-hire positions.

This frees up a considerable amount of time for you to do what you do best, whether that means doing work for clients or growing your business. Either way, staffing agencies offer an opportunity to save a considerable amount of time and money. Since we all know time is money, it’s a win/win.

Avoid Making a Bad Hire

If you’re short on time and rushing through the hiring process, you’ll probably be more likely to make a mistake and hire someone who’s not a good fit for the position and/or your company and the consequences can be disastrous. You can either invest more time and energy in further training for your new employee, or you can let them go, in which case you’ll have to worry about providing a severance package. Then you have to go through the hassle of the whole hiring process all over again and you’ve just doubled the time and resources needed to add just one member to your team.

Because staffing agencies spend so much time working with their candidates, this kind of situation is less likely to happen. Nevertheless, it’s always a possibility. If that’s the case, the agency can still help you out by providing a new candidate or pool of potential candidates for the job so you don’t have to spend the time and energy looking for a replacement.

Some Tips

Staffing agencies work hard to find a good fit that works well for everyone involved. In order to best equip the agency help you, it’s a good idea to give them as much information as possible. Having representatives of the agency come into your office gives them a chance to get a feel for your work culture and environment. That gives them a better feel for the type of candidate that will be the best addition to your team.